On Saturday, August 10, CHG Circa presents “Random Acts of Sadness,” featuring the new paintings and sculpture of popular Los Angeles artist Luke Chueh.

The art of “Random Acts of Sadness” finds Chueh’s animal personas coping with his sad and tragic narratives. As the name of the show suggests, Chueh drew inspiration from whatever came to mind, from his childhood reflections, Asian heritage, personal recovery, and experiences as an artist. In his new work, Chueh’s creatures live in universal contrasts of adoration and atrocity, echoing a decade of his art. “Random Acts of Sadness” is probably one of my more truly introspective shows,” says Luke Chueh.

In the featured painting “Even a Monkey,” Chueh’s artist monkey draws a bear portrait, over and over, projected into an altered state of comic self-reflection. Chueh goes on to say, “One way you can read into the painting is my recognizing that anybody (even a monkey) can draw a cute sad character. However, the painting also declares that there has to be a reason why I’ve been able to do this for so long, and it’s because there is a lot more to my work than cute animal characters.” In the painting “Seppuku,” Chueh draws inspiration from his recent trip to Tokyo. His bear’s foreboding ritual suicide is seconded by a samurai-sword wielding caricature of himself. In “Target (Revisited),” a bear paints a symbol of its own doom against a bullet-riddled execution wall. Cuteness has become an endgame, caught in the enigma of a warped, iconic moment. “My paintings feature simple anthropomorphic characters and are driven by a dark, at times tragic, narrative,” says Chueh. Here, his benign characters find more sinister and comical fates, grounded by their stoical detachment - monkey, bear, and rabbit are cool under fire.

For “Random Acts of Sadness,” Cheuh’s “You Are What You Eat” series of paintings will profile ethnic culinary habits - specifically Chinese. “There are certain Chinese delicacies that I consider verging on barbaric, cruel way the animal is treated before being dispatched and eaten,” says Cheuh. “Ancient Chinese medicine used to believe that you literally were what you ate - if you wanted the libido of a tiger, you ate the penis of a tiger. The philosophy evolved into culinary tradition.” In “You Are What You Eat,” Chueh’s animals, on the plate and the canvas, illustrate his response to the consumption of animal magnetism, symbolized by Bear (Paw), Shark (Fin), and Tiger (Penis).

The 16 paintings and sculptures of “Random Acts of Sadness” will feature Luke Chueh’s familiar characters, experiencing the Chueh vein of narrative and style. An exhibition revealing his art’s natural evolution while retaining the elements he’s best known for. “I think my audience has been wanting to see a ‘classic’ Luke Chueh show, and with this, I am happy to oblige.”

The opening reception for “Random Acts of Sadness” takes place Saturday, August 10 at CHG Circa. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through September 7, 2013.

On Saturday, August 10, 2013, Corey Helford Gallery presents “First World Problems” featuring the wild, visionary robot paintings of artist Eric Joyner, his fifth solo show with the gallery.

Eric Joyner’s paintings explore surreal robot sagas of mechanical life in the material world. “Humanity reflected in robots,” says Eric on the theme of his upcoming Corey Helford show, originally and revealingly called ‘Back in the U.S.S.A.’ (United Surreal States of America).’ “These new paintings are set in urban areas as opposed to the jungle like my last show,” says Eric, “with an emphasis on robots loitering around bakeries, and other small establishments.”

In the featured oil-on-wood painting “Heavy Traffic”, robots driving X-15s, Space Tanks, and other classic-retro spaceships are caught in a boulevard traffic jam on a softly lit street of neighborhood local shops. Robot life, trapped in their slowed vehicles and oblivious to the pleasure of nearby bakery goods, is existential. “The problem here is traffic and the possible anxiety for someone in a small car.” The paintings of “First World Problems” depict the dreams and struggles of robots finding home in a hard-wired life, ironic with urban coexistence. “I am inspired by quaint shops, trees, robots, misunderstanding and absurdity,” Eric says.

Since 1999, Eric Joyner has painted his protagonist robots and in 2002, he discovered their ultimate ‘nemesis’ - the donut. In bakery goods, his robots found an existential contradiction in the deep-fried adversity of the sweet absurd. Through robo-pop narratives, Eric’s saturations of light and color find unexpected meaning with surreal juxtapositions. He adds, “I am a robo surrealist.” In his new painting “The Intervention”, a bright retro-robot brandishing a bakery good towers over a city apocalypse. Pastry makes life worth living, even for robots.

“First World Problems” will exhibit sixteen oil paintings of robot neo-realities. “I’ve been looking at American toy robots for the 1960’s,” says Eric, “Lot’s more signage in this show...and bakeries.” The exhibition’s richly painted color-noir robots, living their urban day-to-day ontologies, reveal Eric Joyner’s new robo-visions, a place not too far away from a bakery near you.

The opening reception for “First World Problems” takes place on Saturday, August 10 at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through September 7, 2013.

From his recent collaboration with luxury brand Louis Vuitton to his Virgin Atlantic in-flight and departure lounge “Gallery in the Air” exhibitions, Eine is pushing the boundaries of urban art to new dimensions. “None of us could have imagined we would've been celebrated artists. We all were just into graffiti and wanted to push the art form forward. Looking back, it helped that we were so young, because if we were striving to become artists, then it would've affected the work we did. Eine adds about his exhibition in a feature with Interview Magazine. “A lot of our styles were created by the innocence we had. So these paintings in my show are about those layers of graffiti and the street and the interesting patterns they create.”

In the London urban art underground, Eine’s graphic lettering iconified the streets and shutters with a bold, bright style. With vibrant typography, Eine’s letters show as visual artifacts, phonetic with colors and contrasts. In painting an entire London street with epic spray paint letters, the street was renamed “Alphabet Street” and described by UK’s The Times as a “living piece of art,” winning the hearts and minds of England with his inviting work. In 2010, his colorful canvas work “Twentyfirst Century City” was presented to President Obama as a gift from the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, finding Ben Eine world recognition.

Eine’s symbols of color, contrast and form framed by street, shutter, and canvas, create a living syntax: a recognition of letters and words at play, abstract in the street and the gallery. Eine’s art is figuratively laconic with its graffiti origins, and ironic with phrases as “Vandalism” co-opting criminal mischief for the bright aesthetics of his urban art. In the graffiti underground, Eine conceptualized the outlaw tag as a medium of innocence resistant to control - art versus vandalism. Within the exhibition space, his street themes find new mercurial contrasts - art versus business. Art’s innocence, resilient to control, is what Eine calls happy graffiti.

The opening reception for Eine’s “Innocence” exhibition takes place Saturday, June 15, 2013 at CHG Circa. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through July 13, 2013.

On Saturday, May 18th, 2013, Corey Helford Gallery presents “Unseen,” an exhibition of new paintings by international street artist HUSH, his first solo exhibition with the gallery.

The women of “Unseen,” enciphered with street tags and abstractions, appear as graffiti specters, colorful visages of noir street action. Under street influence, HUSH paints the exhibit’s imagery as an inward vision, revealing layers of urban histories and figurative dimensions. “In this new work I’ve covered, tagged and erased the eyes of the women which takes away a relationship to the character, a focal point which makes your eyes want to discover the painting and mark making within it,” says HUSH. As the female forms are materialized by the tags, throws, and dubs of his superimposed marks, the paintings of “Unseen” project the visual imagery of the streets, sensualized by the urban classicism of its feminine faces.

“I look to take something like tagging that is generally seen as aggressive, ugly and masculine out of context and present it to the viewer as something beautiful,” HUSH says. The painted street tag is the quantum mark of HUSH’s fusion of Eastern and Western themes: a visual syntax of urban expressionism and cross-cultural contrasts, embodied within his figurations. “The presence of the female form within my work is important as a symbol and for me it symbolizes beauty and the power of sexuality and supports the perception of how the graffiti should be viewed.”

The 24 canvases of “Unseen” and site-specific works will also exhibit, for the first time, abstract paintings of mixed media, screen-print paintings, pencil studies, minimal pieces, screen prints and sticker collages on wood. In the featured painting, “Unseen I,” the figure’s eyes are tagged and stare darkly beyond its large 64” by 44” canvas, layered with acrylic, screen, spray paints, and screen inks on linen, syncretic with medium, style, and theme. “It’s a diverse body of work that should make an interesting show and explain the depth of my working process,” says HUSH, describing the show as, “The beauty of tagging, graffiti, and the female form.”

The opening reception for “Unseen” takes place Saturday, May 18th at Corey Helford Gallery. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through June 15, 2013.

HUSHFrom his London studio, HUSH paints for exhibition and site work in Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America. A UK native, his street art, murals, and paintings have been featured in numerous books and publications and was recognized by London’s The Independent as one of the ‘Top 20 Up and Coming Artists’. His OneThirty3 project space in Newcastle UK, presents the best in street and urban art from around the world. For more information about the artist, please visit www.studio-hush.com.

On Saturday, April 13, 2013, CHG Circa is pleased to present “Ray Caesar, New and Rare Work,” an exhibition of Ray Caesar’s digital art work highlighting a decade of vibrant persona.

Caesar’s vision resonates with the changing psyche of his figures, reflecting memories of his childhood and experiences employed at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. “My work is about hunting back innocence and using archetypes to develop spiritual growth,” says Caesar. “It is a self-portrait of my subconscious and spiritual development through imagery.”

In “Mother and Child,” Caesar explores familial sustenance as nourishment for the soul. “I was thinking about the nature of nurture and my own childhood and relationship with my mother.” Caesar describes his “Mother and Child” as Venus feeding her child Cupid on “the cup of human kindness.” Through a dreamtime family, Caesar renders the pain of allegorical healing. “By creating an image, I can form a foundation of healing.”

Modeling his figures in 3D animation software, Caesar wraps his sculpted surfaces with a skin of painted imagery. 3D modeling is a medium of points and planes in a virtual space; geometries Caesar creates with emo tive dreams and memories. Illuminated by self-reflection, his forms are realized through exhibition, sharing psychic intimacies. “I try to create an image that is in my view ‘pretty’ but pain and deformity creep into that world beyond my control. I try to make my own pain and struggle and confusion in life as something pleasant and endurable.”

“Ray Caesar, New and Rare Work” will exhibit six new works with three studies, and a catalogue of works reflecting his evolution. With the evocative “Winter” and “Fallen” providing contrast to the more playful works, Caesar reveals the changes of his past decade. “As a retrospective, I wanted to show a selection of work from the different stages of the past and definitely show work that hasn’t been seen on the West Coast before,” says Caesar. On his aesthetic: “Pretty pictures with a little pinch of pain and putridity portraying the past of a person with more than a few peculiar problems.”

The opening reception for “Ray Caesar, New and Rare Work” takes place on Saturday, April 13 at CHG Circa. The reception is open to the public, and the exhibition will be on view through May 11, 2013.